Richard M. Nixon - The 1968 presidential contest

Nixon was one of several viable contenders for the nomination. Moderates
supported George Romney and later Nelson Rockefeller, while Ronald Reagan
bid for conservative support. Nixon, situated as a centrist, had to dispel
notions that he was a loser and then build a coalition consisting of
professional party politicians, personal loyalists, and groups from both
the moderate and conservative wings of the party. Nixon's tactical
skills again brought success. He made a deal with Senator Strom Thurmond
of South Carolina, promising the South that he would appoint
"strict constructionists" to the federal judiciary, name a
southerner to the Supreme Court, oppose court-ordered busing, and pick
someone acceptable to the South for the vice presidency. With this deal
set, Nixon was able to win much southern conservative support and head off
Reagan. A series of successes in primaries dispelled the loser image, and
his standing in the preconvention polls indicated he could win the
election, thus undercutting Rockefeller's premise that to back
Nixon was to concede the election.

The election results put Nixon in the White House, but under inauspicious
circumstances. The third-party candidacy of George Wallace left Nixon with
only 43 percent of the vote, hardly a popular mandate. Nixon received 31.7
million popular votes (301 electoral votes); Hubert Humphrey, the
Democratic candidate, won 30.8 million votes (191 electoral votes); and
Wallace's American Independent party drew 9.4 million votes (46
electoral votes). Nixon won what political scientists call a deviating
election—that is, one in which the advantage in party
identification remains with the party that lost the election. In Congress,
Democrats enjoyed a 57-43 advantage in the Senate and a 243-192 advantage
in the House, with Republicans picking up just five House seats to go
along with their gain of six in the Senate. Nixon would face a Congress
controlled by the opposition and could not rely on a party-based
legislative strategy. Instead, he would have to put together shifting
coalitions: sometimes center-right, linking most Republicans with the
southern Democrats to pay off his debts to the South or to support his
foreign policies, and sometimes center-left, with moderate Republicans
joining liberal Democrats to pass his own version of modern and
progressive Republican social welfare, economic, and environmental
legislation. At least in domestic affairs, the Nixon presidency promised
to be eclectic and unorthodox.

Nixon never improved on this weak political position. His 1972 victory
over George McGovern, with 59.7 percent of the vote, provided him with the
support of the "Silent Majority" or "Middle
America," as he called it, but he did not lead his party to
victory. There were no appreciable changes in Democratic advantages in
party identification and voter registration. In 1970 midterm elections the
Republicans picked up two Senate seats but lost twelve in the House, and
Nixon's strident campaign speeches contributed to this disaster,
although the president claimed that he had won an "ideological
majority" in the Senate. In 1972 the party lost the two Senate
seats but regained the twelve in the House. By 1974 the Watergate
investigations (see below) left the party in shambles: Republicans lost
four Senate seats and forty-nine House seats, and held less than one-third
of governorships and state legislative seats. Republicans did not make a
comeback until 1978 and 1980.